We’ve been ogling 2024 Toyota Tacoma spy shots and patent images for nearly a year, doing the same with official teasers for half that long. The wait isn’t over for the new generation of the hugely popular mid-sizer going on nine years old. What we have is a couple more glimpses thanks to Toyota’s Instagram page of a welcome upgrade and a new piece in the available feature set. The upgrade, shown on the right in the photo above, is a disc brake hiding behind the TRD Pro wheel. For those who didn’t know the current Tacoma still rocks drum brakes on the back axle, a setup Toyota has explained for years with various justifications of varying reasonableness. We don’t know of another light-duty pickup on sale with drum brakes, and certainly, when spending $50,000 in 2023 to get in on the ground floor of a TRD Pro, drums seem exceedingly quaint. Even the $31,000 Ram 1500 Classic Tradesman gets four-wheel discs. Point being, the times are coming for the Tacoma.
Keen eyes might have noticed the squarer, chunkier black wheel arch extension.
The second treat is a Fox shock at the front of the truck. Three lines of small print on the damper read, “TRD Pro,” “Internal Bypass,” and “QS3.” It’s the last bit that matters. Today’s Tacoma TRD Pro is the only rig in the lineup to benefit from Fox 2.5-inch internal bypass shocks in front and an equally-sized pair in back with remote reservoirs. They’re not branded and not adjustable, though, giving away nothing about what Fox shock family they’re derived from. The coming QS3 units are adjustable, the alphanumeric name standing for Quick Switch 3. The small knob angled off the damper can be turned through three positions, . The wild bit is that these are powersports shocks; well known among UTV and snowmobile buyers, we are not aware of any passenger vehicle riding on QS3s, and a cursory run through Fox’s site doesn’t show the QS3s available for anything other than off-highway vehicles. So the 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro could be about to break the seal on a new suspension setup — but in a good way.
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